"It took Bring Me The Horizon 10 years to get into arenas. Sleep Token did it in less than five." Inside the rise of Sleep Token, by those who were there

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"How we got here is as irrelevant as who we are – what matters is the music and the message.'
So Sleep Token singer Vessel told Metal Hammer in 2017, in the very first interview this mysterious figure ever conducted, and one of only a scant handful that has been done since. Except that quote isn't quite accurate.
Who Sleep Token are behind the masks and under the robes may not be a concern to a fanbase deeply protective of the band's true identities, but their journey from tech metal curios to the biggest success story of the 2020s is a different matter.
Since releasing their debut single, Thread The Needle, back in 2016, Sleep Token's fame has grown exponentially. Post-pandemic in particular, their ascent has been dizzying, with Sleep Token headlining arenas in the UK and US and, most impressively, about to headline Download's Main Stage.
The mystique surrounding the band has played a big part in their popularity, but there's more to it than the spectral hand of Sleep, the mysterious deity that guides the band (according to the mythology). This is how Sleep Token became the most successful metal band of the decade, in the words of some of the people who were part of it.
Sleep Token were shrouded in mystery from the start. The initial concept of an anonymous band was in place even before they released a note of music, as was a broad version of the lore on which the band would be built, though Vessel was initially known as 'Him'.
George Lever [Sleep Token producer 2016-2021]: 'The starting point was removing this idea of the music you listen to being related to the person making it. By being anonymous, the listener is forced to relate to what they're actually hearing.'
James Monteith [Tesseract guitarist/publicist at Hold Tight PR]: 'We used to run the press area of [UK tech metal festival] Techfest and, in 2016, I was approached by Tom Quigley, who was a scene regular and ran a few blogs at the time. He said he was working with this new band, would we maybe be interested in doing their press? We ended up talking for an hour, and he rolled out the whole concept, the imagery and everything about it… other than the music.'
George Lever: 'The lore/narrative was pretty loose still, but it definitely existed.'
James Monteith: 'There was nothing specific as such, more this idea of creating an occult vibe and feeling, led by this prophet-like character who leads a religion. I remember thinking, 'This is all very interesting, but where's the music?''
The wider world got their first taste of Sleep Token in September 2016 with the release of Thread The Needle, a song whose haunting atmosphere, gentle piano and emotive vocals were punctuated by jarring tech metal-style breakdowns. The song was accompanied by a video featuring abstract visuals that gave no clue as to the band's identity.
It was followed three months later by the self-released three-track One EP, which brought them to the attention of Basick Records, who had helped break bands such as Enter Shikari, Sikth and Bury Tomorrow.
George Lever: 'A lot of the first EP was actually us trying stuff out. We recorded the drums on a whim at Monnow Valley Studio in Wales. I introduced him to one of my friends, who actually still drums in them now.'
Nathan Barley Phillips [co-founder of Basick Records]: 'I really liked One. We [Basick] wanted to put something together where we could amplify what Sleep Token were and what they were doing. It was still relatively scrappy at that time, but it was clear there was a vision from day one.'
James Monteith: 'We shared an office with Nathan, so we discussed it with him. Then an email popped into our inbox with one of the early demos of Calcutta [which would eventually appear on 2017's Two EP]. It all clicked instantly. I'd never heard anything like it before. It sounded like Meshuggah mixed with Bon Iver.'
Nathan Barley Phillips: 'People assumed everyone got onboard from day one, but that wasn't the case. There were some raised eyebrows around the anonymity and the presentation, even the songwriting.'
James Monteith: 'In the tech metal world there was a lot of buzz and excitement early on, but outside of that it seemed to be really slow going. The press didn't really know what to make of it.'
Nathan Barley Phillips: 'In its simplest terms, we described it as 'Sam Smith meets Meshuggah'. Those were the layman's terms we used to describe it to people who might not get it. Believe me, there were people in those early days who didn't!'
Part of the reason behind that bafflement was due to the fact that the band didn't give interviews – even the similarly anonymous Ghost had spoken to the media in their early days under a pseudonym. In May 2017, they finally relented and conducted their very first interview, done via email for Metal Hammer's website.
James Monteith: 'We always got requests, but the band said from the start they were anonymous and wouldn't do them. It helped create more curiosity because nobody could get access to them.'
Matt Benton: 'You can't do an introductory piece without an interview. We managed to get an agreement [from Sleep Token] for an email interview with Metal Hammer. Even then, the band knew they didn't want to have a voice.'
Nathan Barley Phillips: 'There were a lot of decisions that were super-interesting to be involved with, especially in that development stage where we were making decisions about how it was presented, the language we would use, whether we should do interviews. That was the acorn that informed a lot of how things are still handled today.'
Vessel (in the Metal Hammer interview): 'As musicians we are inspired by the human condition and a plethora of artists, but we are deeply moved by His words and continue to do our utmost to bring them to life. As followers we are bound by a duty to combine our crafts to create music that conveys some of our most primal, and powerful emotions.'
Matt Benton: 'It's one of only a few interviews they've ever done. It's something I'm glad exists, because it's like getting the Word Of God.'
Sleep Token's second EP, Two, was released in July 2017. It found the band expanding their mix of tech metal, metalcore, pop and R'n'B across its three tracks. The buzz around the band was growing, despite the fact they'd yet to play live – a mooted headlining show at Camden's Black Heart pub was scrapped when they got an offer to support Norwegian psych rockers Motorpyscho at London's Islington Academy in October 2017.
A month later, they opened for synthwave trailblazer Perturbator at ULU in Central London.
George Lever: 'I had freedom to offer interpretations of what I was hearing. It was a very fortunate combination of personalities and ideals. There was never any, 'We're going to take over the world'-type chat. It was more, 'Do we like this?' 'Let's do more of that.''
Nathan Barley Phillips: 'After Two came out, I started getting calls from booking agents and promoters who I'd not heard from in a while. They wanted to speak to me about Sleep Token.'
Matt Benton: 'The first time seeing them in the flesh onstage was pretty strange. They were wearing these quite rudimentary masks. But even at the Motorpsycho show, there were some people there who very obviously knew the songs. When they did the Outkast cover [Hey Ya!, originally released in 2017], you could hear a pin drop. Vessel had such a command of the room through his vocals – something that's not really changed.'
James Kent [Perturbator]: 'We'd been given a few options for bands that wanted to open that show, but I remember selecting them because I thought they sounded really good.'
Kamran Haq [promoter and Download festival booker]: 'The Perturbator gig was more like a showcase for Sleep Token. A lot of people had never seen or heard the band before but were blown away: 'What the fuck is this?!''
Matt Benton: 'You could see this was a band who were finding their feet and organically growing. They had such a strong idea of who they wanted to be both on- and offstage.'
James Kent: 'It sounded and looked so brilliant, so professional. I had no idea it was only their second show.'
The calculated caution surrounding Sleep Token's early live appearances soon evaporated. After opening for Loathe and Holding Absence in Manchester and London in March 2018, they hit the festival circuit hard that year, playing The Great Escape in May, Download in June (on the fourth stage), Techfest in July, and Reading and Leeds in August, squeezing in a session for Radio 1's Rock Show amid it all.
Matt Benton: 'The Great Escape was the first point they'd started to get industry legitimacy. There was still a sense of, 'Who is this band? What are they gonna do?''
Kamran Haq: 'That Great Escape show was incredible. It was super-hot and the room was absolutely packed – you couldn't move in there. I reckon they only played four songs. But it was special too because it was the first time a lot of tastemakers were seeing the band.'
Adam Ryan [Great Escape festival director]: 'In terms of acts that would go on to really blow up, we had Fontaines D.C., Sam Fender, Slowthai… It was a fantastic year. But Sleep Token ended up being the talk of the festival.'
Nathan Barley Phillips: 'Trying to keep some sense of anonymity was a real mission. Particularly getting them to and from the stage without anyone seeing who they were.'
James Monteith: 'Techfest felt like a nice full-circle thing, because that's where we'd first heard the concept and now they were playing to a completely overpacked room. It was the first time I knew something special was going on – we'd never seen anything like it before.'
For all the increasing live activity, Sleep Token had yet to play their own headline show. That changed on October 11, 2018, when they performed at the intimate and atmospheric St Pancras Old Church in North London.
James Monteith: 'It was their first sell-out event, which also became a big part of their legend.'
Matt Benton: 'That was the first affirmation that what they were doing was going to work. Everything really picked up from there too.'
Nathan Barley Phillips: 'It really felt like a coming of age for the band. It was the first moment where everything felt fully formed and fully realised. It was like, 'This is what it could be.' You could trace a kernel of some of the things they were doing at the St Pancras show to some of the massive shows they've done since.'
Having signed to Spinefarm Records, a subsidiary of major label Universal, Sleep Token spent the early part of 2019 recording debut album Sundowning with George Lever in a studio in Wells, Somerset. The first song from the album, The Night Does Not Belong To God, was released in June 2019, with each subsequent song dropping on YouTube at sunset at fortnightly intervals.
By the time the album was released in November 2019, the band had already embarked on their first US tour, opening for metalcore outfit Issues on a bill that also featured Polyphia and rapper Lil Aaron.
George Lever: 'We did Sundowning in three months – we went from demo to final master being released in just 12 weeks. We didn't have days off; we'd do seven in the morning until seven, eight or even nine at night every day for three months. We were in each other's pockets; we'd go to the gym together, swim, do the sauna… All this stuff to recover from being sat down all the time. There was a lot of time to spend holistically being friends making this record. We didn't know how to make this thing, but we had a confidence that we'd get there in the end. That's my favourite three-month period of my life.'
Skyler Acord [Issues bassist]: 'Our booking agent sent us this EP Sleep Token had released and I was blown away. It felt like I could see the future. Usually, you walk in during the opener and get a beer and talk as loud as you can, right? But everyone was engaged. It was like seeing Slipknot in '99 or something, except, it was different from the nu metal of yore. A lot of that had this trailer park, 'I'm insane!' vibe. Sleep Token is poetic – less malt liquor, more wine.'
Sleep Token were on an upswing as they entered 2020. Their first UK headlining tour in January saw them return to Islington Academy, where they'd played their first gig as openers for Motorpsycho just over two years earlier.
The plan was to enter the studio in March 2020 to record their second album, This Place Will Become Your Tomb, with producer George Lever. Then Covid upended everything.
George Lever: 'We started making that album and the first day was when lockdowns began. Tomb… was tough for all of us emotionally. There were lifestyle pressures as a result of the lockdown that made it not very conducive to making art that is supposed to be welcomed or welcoming. A lot of those songs are, in one way or another, about love, love being lost or remorse, they are compassionate tales that are designed to bring the listener towards the artist. It's hard to do that when it feels like the world is going to end.'
This Place Will Become Your Tomb was eventually released on September 24, 2021, three months after Sleep Token made a memorable appearance at Download Pilot, the first major post-Covid festival. It reached No.39 in the UK charts, giving the band their first Top 40 album.
Since then, devotion towards the band has only intensified. In January 2023, Sleep Token put out singles Chokehold and The Summoning, the latter going viral on TikTok, leading to a dramatic increase in their streaming numbers.
When third album Take Me Back To Eden was released in May, it hit No.3 in the charts. In December, Sleep Token played Wembley Arena – their first ever arena headlining show. Just a year later, they performed at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in London.
James Monteith: 'In January 2023, Tesseract ended up playing a festival with them in the Netherlands. Architects were the top of the bill, we were main support, then Northlane were below us and Sleep Token were opening. Within 12 months, they were an arena band. Crazy!'
Kamran Haq: 'It took Bring Me The Horizon 10 years to get into arenas. Architects, 14 years… Sleep Token did it in less than five. It's pretty nuts.'
On March 13, 2025, Sleep Token released Emergence, the first single from their hugely anticipated fourth album, Even In Arcadia. It was followed on April 4 by another new song, Caramel.
As is usual in Sleep Token's world, everything is enveloped in enigma – an online puzzle gave fans a choice between 'House Veridian' and 'Feathered Host', with no explanation as to what either was or how they plug into the wider Sleep Token lore. But once again, the silence has only fed the appetite of fans, something underlined by their upcoming debut headlining appearance at Download festival in June, and their subsequent US arena tour later this year.
Kamran Haq: 'To go from playing Download's fourth stage to headlining the festival is spectacular. I don't think we've ever had it happen, especially in such a short space of time. The only thing I can equate it to is something like My Chemical Romance or Linkin Park.'
Matt Benton: 'Sleep Token have become an industry in their own right. I've got friends in merchandising and they say Sleep Token shift more merch than any other UK heavy band – more than even Iron Maiden.'
James Kent: 'The imagery definitely helped. The fact it's all pretty accessible too – they have a lot of R'n'B, electronica, some aggressive djenty stuff… it's a good gateway. I had no idea it'd blow up like it has. Now I'd love to open for them!'
Nathan Barley Phillips: 'Bands like Ghost and Sleep Token aren't successful because they wear masks. They're successful because they write great music. Masks don't mean anything if the music isn't any good.'
Matt Benton: 'I'll be interested to see, when the first official TV movie of the band gets made, the difference between the reality of what happened and the story that gets told. In a way, the myth becomes the reality.'
Kamran Haq: 'We all thought the band was special, but nobody in a million years thought they could be what they are now.'
Even In Arcadia is out now via RCA. Sleep Token headline Download Festival on June 14 and tour the US later this year.